


A starlit reminiscence

by jessieb



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works
Genre: Baby Thranduil, Character Study, Oropher feels, Random - Freeform, Thranduil's mum is a boss, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 05:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessieb/pseuds/jessieb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not a story, more a quick character/culture study that I needed to get out of my system. </p>
<p>A Thranduil that's much older than he probably was intended to be and the set-up for an Oropher who just wants to go home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A starlit reminiscence

In the first of his memories, he remembers little except being incredibly drowsy. It is more a feeling than a memory. There is music and singing, he is warm and in his Nana’s arms and she is singing her own quiet song just to him. He can hear Ada too, his voice rising above the milieu in laughter. A steady hand rests on his back and he opens his bleary eyes see to Ada kiss Nana tenderly. Ada also bestows a kiss on Thranduil’s cheek, star-silver hair falling into his eyes and making him blink.  Ada smells like good clean loam and that seems right to him. There is dark paint on Ada’s face and chest, but the memory is hazy and even looking back in adulthood he can’t determine what animal he was this time.

Next, there is another memory of the familiar singing and dancing, as natural to them all as the occasional need to rest. In this recollection, he does remember flashes of the dancing and stories, the hot glow and snap of the fire. He was a bee and he buzzed around the _caras_ and thieved some of the sweet berries he had helped to collect earlier. The Elders laughed and talked and were far too busy to notice him in his stealth. When even busy bees tire, Ada carries him to the soft moss where the other children are sleeping and tucks him between two of his friends. The stars glimmer overhead as Ada sings a lullaby.

After this, the recollections all spill into one another, one hardly ending before another begins.

He is watching the hedgehog intently when he is unexpectedly lifted high and thrown into the air. Denethor catches him again, as Thranduil knew he would, and declares that he will soon be too big for this, _Khina,_ just like his Ada. Denethor is kind and merry and Ada loves him. He is taller even than Ada and when he swings Thranduil around, it feels like he himself is as tall as the trees. Nana laughs and Denethor smiles and in his eyes there is starlight-

on river water as he cups his hands to drink. He is old enough now to follow the hunts, to worry the rabbits and flush them from the tall grasses by the river plains. The elders brought down a buck and he wants to watch as they skin it, but Oropher calls him with the childhood name he barely remembers now. His father sits with him beneath the canopy of a content oak tree and shows him how to skin one of the rabbits with a flint blade. That evening, the rabbit is served alongside more meat from the hunt, dandelion roots, chestnuts and sweet-smelling blackberry wine for the elders and he feels proud to have contributed-

-the woad he found. Nana had not quite had enough, but now she could make a blue dye to give to Galadwen, who would make him and Ada warm new tunics and Nana a dress from the cloth she spun, then would keep the rest and trade it with others. Dyeing cloth so that the colour would stay could be difficult; Nana had learnt how in Menegroth. She showed him how to prepare the leaves and, later, how to dye the cloth. When they pulled it out, he watched it darken in the air itself through the colour of young ferns to that of sapphires . The seeds of the plant they gave to Spenna, who used them to make soap. That wasn’t nearly as interesting. Not like colours and singing and dancing and stories-

of far off places and people. He asks Denethor why owls call to each other like they do. Denethor tells the children a wonderful story about owls, who for all their skill at finding mice always misplace their loved ones, which is why they look all around like they do. Then he shows them how to make the call through their hands and they run about calling to each other until the elders put their hands over their mouths to silence them. The best stories are tales of the great King Elu in the west and powerful Melian. Of their stone dwelling beneath the earth, carved in such likeness of the woodland around it that animals dwell there, between gems that glittered innumerable intense colours in the light of thousands of lanterns. A thousand caves; a hundred was ten tens and a thousand was one hundred of those hundreds, Nana said, but it seemed to Thranduil that one might as well count the leaves on all the leaves in the vast beechgrove at the flat river island than try to understand such a number, or all the fish in theriver.

They don’t know what it is at first; a far distant fire they speculate, from the light and the warmth. All they know is that a great round star hangs in the sky for a time, serene and beautiful. Then after a time, a blazing orb followed it that cast a dazzling light across the world. They see for the first time how Thranduil and his Nana’s gold hair is different from the silver of Ada or the nut browns of most of their tribe. He is enthralled anew at the blue of their woad coloured clothes. Where stones and gems had gleamed, they now sparkled, reflecting the light. He held up a crystal and the light shining through it cast light of many colours across his palm; all the colours he could ever have imagined and he does not have names for them all. The flowers seem to wake from a sleep and all the birds sing in welcome. They learnt that when this _Anor_ is visiting the wood is excited and noisy, and when it shines though _meord_ he finds he cannot speak for the beauty of the result.

He is as tall as Father’s shoulder when the messenger comes from King Thingol. Adar and Nana speak quietly together, before Adar steps forward. He volunteers himself, Nana and Thranduil as messengers. He says it is long since they have visited their kin, that it is time for Thranduil to meet the rest of his family. Some of the Elders tease Adar and Nana, though he doesn’t understand why. They say that if they both still enjoy travelling so much, the _caras_ may have a new child to raise shortly after their return. Nana kisses Adar to raucous laughter.  

One evening in Sirion, many centuries later, Oropher confesses to him that returning to Menegroth may have been the worst decision of his immortal life.

 

 

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Khina = child

Caras = Village

Anor = The sun

Meord = fine rain

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely unrelated to FSIG etc. I just need to get this idea out of my head, you know? That Thranduil is younger.
> 
> Let's pretend that 'Thranduil' is an epesse and he had a child name instead, because 'Thranduil' references spring, which is of course a season and presumably there were no seasons before the sun rose. 
> 
> Also, the word 'caras' has various definitions. It's meant to indicate a village or a moated fortress, but I'm postulating an earlier meaning for the more nomadic Elven groups, which basically means village in that a village would be the group of people you are travelling with, not necessarily the place. We do sort of use this ourselves in modern times; 'the village believes'. So, in this, it's used to indicate village as a group of people in a way similar to tribe, but it's beginning to take on implications of 'fixedness'. I couldn't find a word for clan or tribe :( 
> 
> Please feel free to ignore that, it's not in any way canon; I'm just meddlesome.


End file.
